[kibwen]

Broken window theory gets (rightfully, IMO) criticized because it tries to make an unjustified logical leap between crimes of a wildly different degree of severity.

I'm not trying to argue against the premise above that seeing litter makes people more likely to litter; in fact, I agree with it. Humans are monkey-see monkey-do creatures. The problem is that "monkey sees broken window, monkey does murder" is not how this works. It's a weirdly authoritarian way of thinking that suggests that criminality is not only objective, but a tidy spectrum.

[autoexec]

The flaw with broken windows theory was that it was used to justify excessive and abusive police actions. Cleaning up trash, turning vacant lots into parks and pleasant spaces, keeping public areas well maintained, and generally making it look like people give a shit about where they live really does make a huge difference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ02VLZ_Ey0

[throwway120385]

Another thing the police can do is try to solve problems beyond stopping lawbreakers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_policing. These things really do matter.